There may be lessons to learn..... 7.30am, eastbound. It's always best to avoid such a situation especially on a high-speed, high volume road like a freeway. One slip in concentration can bring things horribly unstuck - early morning, morning after the night before, sun in the eyes, long sweeping right bend near there that leads drivers to wander into the emergency lane, truck draft and crosswinds etc. All of these are potential risks, that may be factors in this collision.

Personally I'd rather ride on a regular road with lower volume and average speeds, despite the lack of a wide emergency lane.

Like many wives in Sydney today, mine got a shock when she heard the news as i was out on my ride. Thankfully today as usual on a Saturday I ride the m7 Cycleway. I have however ridden the m4 on a Sat morning. Allways hits home hard when it is so close to your normal ride routes. Tragic.

There may be lessons to learn..... 7.30am, eastbound. It's always best to avoid such a situation especially on a high-speed, high volume road like a freeway. One slip in concentration can bring things horribly unstuck - early morning, morning after the night before, sun in the eyes, long sweeping right bend near there that leads drivers to wander into the emergency lane, truck draft and crosswinds etc. All of these are potential risks, that may be factors in this collision.

Personally I'd rather ride on a regular road with lower volume and average speeds, despite the lack of a wide emergency lane.

It might be a wake up call to connect the separated pathways that are along portions of the M4 and extend them further west after Parramatta and onwards to the M7 and maybe out to Emu Plains. Although there aren't many cycling incidents along there, the amount of rear end shunt type traffic accidents that happen just makes it a ticking time bomb if there are cyclists using it. Not many seem to use it in either direction. In my last 4 weeks of being on the M4 each day, I saw only 2 cyclists.

That's bad news.I was just thinking the other day the best way to Melbourne from Dandenong is on the free way emergency lane, but it is illegal to ride the freeways here. In fact even the emergency lane stops at certain overpasses so not even an option.

winstonw wrote:Sad to hear. I don't know of any major motorway in Brisbane that permits bicycles.

Yeah I remember when I was living in Brisbane all the motorways forbid cyclists.

That isn't the case in Sydney.

Problem is - there aren't many other routes around that area going towards Sydney. At least the M4 has a wide breakdown lane. The Great Western Highway (the other main road) doesn't even have that in most places.

Our authorities obviously think this is safe enough, or they wouldn't have allowed it.

outnabike wrote:That's bad news.I was just thinking the other day the best way to Melbourne from Dandenong is on the free way emergency lane, but it is illegal to ride the freeways here. In fact even the emergency lane stops at certain overpasses so not even an option.

Someone that lives at lapstone or glenbrook has little choice really. Likewise I must use110km/hr sections of the hume, because they are the only road to certain places, including my folks place.

As it is the fundamental road that people in the area must use to travel, it should never have been a motorway without having a full sep cycleway, and given that it doesn't have a full sep cycleway, it should never have been allowed to have 110km/hr exits and entries.

There really does have to be some serious changes to highway design rules in this country.

I remember when the M4 was first built, it was promoted as a safe place to ride having wide lanes, wide shoulders, straight road with lots of visibility & no cross traffic. Yes you need to cross the off & on ramps, but the hazard is obvious, you have good visibility and you only ever have to deal with traffic from one direction. It is, in my experience safer than many of the alternative roads.

The M2 was the same - it was a condition of building the motorway that it had provision for bikes - there was controversy about whether they were required to pay the toll (almost no cyclist did & the motorway gave up on the issue). Like Zero says, it was only with the M7 that they actually built a seperated cycleway.

Whatever the circumstances, it is still a tragic loss.

cobba wrote:There's a bit of info about the accident on the NSW Poilce Facebook page, the comments on there are turning into a bit of an argument.

find_bruce wrote:I remember when the M4 was first built, it was promoted as a safe place to ride having wide lanes, wide shoulders, straight road with lots of visibility & no cross traffic. Yes you need to cross the off & on ramps, but the hazard is obvious, you have good visibility and you only ever have to deal with traffic from one direction. It is, in my experience safer than many of the alternative roads.

The M2 was the same - it was a condition of building the motorway that it had provision for bikes

Sounds like the 'short-cut' option, rather than building real cycling infrastructure. Leaves really needed to be taken out of the Dutch book perhaps?

find_bruce wrote:I remember when the M4 was first built, it was promoted as a safe place to ride having wide lanes, wide shoulders, straight road with lots of visibility & no cross traffic. Yes you need to cross the off & on ramps, but the hazard is obvious, you have good visibility and you only ever have to deal with traffic from one direction. It is, in my experience safer than many of the alternative roads.

The M2 was the same - it was a condition of building the motorway that it had provision for bikes

Sounds like the 'short-cut' option, rather than building real cycling infrastructure. Leaves really needed to be taken out of the Dutch book perhaps?

It's an old motorway - so it's not had a lot of love given to it. Although they are putting small portions of cycle ways alongside it, such as between Coleman Street and Parramatta Road (done recently) but it's just small portions and there is a lot more to be done.

And really it's also a sort of Sydney thing where cycle ways will run for a while and then disappear completely, not linking to another one. Michael O'Reilly of SMH mentioned that recently and he is right.

The M7 on the other hand is awesome, separate cycle way that is wide, smooth and fast in most sections and almost totally free of pedestrians due to the semi-rural locations that it runs through in places. So you can hammer along and do it pretty safely. It's very enjoyable.

It's also probably a pretty good blueprint for those veloways proposed recently. The Dutch book won't happen in Sydney I don't believe, or not to that extent. Unless you know how to get O'Farrell and his colleagues to become pro cycling.

Sadly, one of our crowd lost his life today - and if he didn't have to be on the motorway breakdown lane, if he had another option it might not have happened.

I never ride the M4 for this reason. Last year a group got mowed down as well.

Agree with comments above that the M4 should link up the fragmented cycle-ways.

Also, can't see how it could be the cyclists fault (without knowing all details) as drivers should be aware of other road users including cyclists. Woudl they still complain if they were walking along a footpath and a motorist drifted onto that footpath and hit them?

Who is online

About the Australian Cycling Forums

The largest cycling discussion forum in Australia for all things bike; from new riders to seasoned bike nuts, the Australian Cycling Forums are a welcoming community where you can ask questions and talk about the type of bikes and cycling topics you like.